I’ve written previously about lactose-free and soy-free yogurt options for those among us with uncooperative digestive systems.

The yogurt which established a new Greek Empire in your supermarket

But the google-searches for lactose-free yogurts continue unabated, and since I posted that initial article, the only brand of dairy yogurt on the market that used lactose-free milk (True Yogurt) has become unavailable due to the loss of their production facilities.

Despair not, my fellow lactards.  There is another yogurt option that your intestines may find tolerable: European Style yogurt.

You may have noticed the European invasion in your local dairy aisle: there’s a veritable Greek Empire led by brands like Fage, Oikos, Chobani, The Greek Gods, Trader Joe’s Greek Style yogurt and Brown Cow Greek yogurt; then there are the Icelandic Skyrs (Siggi’s), and the continentally-inspired “European-style yogurts” (Cultural Revolution).  What these products all have in common is that they’re strained to remove a large amount of the lactose-containing liquid (whey) found in your typical American-style yogurt, so they’re a) very thick; b) naturally higher in protein; c) naturally lower in carbohydrate.  Now: since all of the carbohydrate naturally found in yogurt is lactose (milk sugar), a lower carbohydrate yogurt means a lower-lactose yogurt. For some people who can tolerate small amounts of lactose but still have trouble with conventional American-style yogurt, these products may be perfect for you.

How low-lactose are European-style yogurts?

Ounce for ounce, your typical European-style yogurt will have about half or less of the amount of lactose as a standard American-style yogurt.  (This is also very good news for people with diabetes, as plain European style yogurts are very low-carb.)

Let’s start with a standard American-style product for comparisons’ sake: a 6oz container of plain, Dannon low fat yogurt, which contains 11g of naturally-occurring sugar, all of which is lactose (milk sugar).  All conventional yogurts will contain roughly this same amount of lactose, which means any additional sugar listed on the label beyond 11g is added sugar for flavor.  (As a sidebar: if you’d like to read more about how much added sugar is too much added sugar when it comes to yogurt, read this response to a reader who asked that very same question.)

By way of comparison, a standard 5.3oz container of Greek-style yogurt contains 6g lactose (or about 7g for brands sold in a 6oz container), which amounts to 45% less lactose than American-style yogurt.

If that doesn’t excite you, there are thicker, more strained versions out there with even LESS lactose.  A standard 6oz container of Siggi’s Icelandic-style yogurt contains a mere 4g of lactose, or 64% less lactose than American-style yogurt.  (It also has 16-17g of protein and 20% of your daily calcium needs.)

If their labels don't lie, 2% fat Cultural Revolution yogurt has the least amount of lactose (2g) you can find in a milk-based yogurt

And finally, there is Cultural Revolution yogurt, whose low-fat version (2%) is an unimaginably low-lactose product: Just 2g of lactose in a standard 6oz container. That’s 82% less lactose than a conventional American style yogurt.  (Note that the whole milk version (5%) has more lactose: 5g per 6oz container.)

One last–and important–lactose-related factoid when it comes to yogurt is this: the live, active cultures (bacteria) in your yogurt will have predigested some of its lactose before you even eat it, which is why yogurts (and cheeses) are often better-tolerated than straight liquid milk in people with some degree of lactose intolerance.

To put this in mathematical terms: a very low lactose yogurt + some lactose pre-digested by the yogurt cultures= a very good chance people with some (but not complete) lactose intolerance will be able to enjoy yogurt again.

Ready to give real yogurt a try again?

My recommendation is always to choose plain (unflavored) European or Greek-style yogurt if you like how it tastes–or if its convenient for you to doctor it up with a touch of your own sweetener or favorite add-in (I’m partial to almonds + 1 tsp honey, or just a sprinkle of granola).

Virtually all flavored yogurts are loaded with added sugar–often over 3 tsp worth in a teensy little container.  (As a rule of thumb, 6 tsp added sugar per day is a good limit for most women.)  Flavored Greek Yogurts are no exception, and all sugar listed on the label beyond the lactose content detailed above is straight up added sugar.  (In fact, I’ve seen many Greek yogurt products with an unheard-of 30g+ of sugar per container!  I won’t name names, but you know who you are, you sugar-pushing bullies…)  Note: if you’re concerned about lactose, you may want to avoid Cabot’s Greek Style Yogurt: their yogurts contain added whey protein concentrate, which contains lactose.  As a result, their Greek Yogurt has the same amount of lactose as your standard, American-style version.

You make a mean Skyr, Siggi.

If your tastebuds simply won’t adapt to the flavor of plain, then there are some brands that have less added sugar than others.  When I’m not buying plain, here’s what I’d buy:

• Siggi’s Icelandic style yogurt in Vanilla, Grapefruit, Blueberry or Orange-Ginger  (These flavors have 10g total sugar, or 1.5tsp added sugar.  So does the Acai flavor, but I think it tastes kinda weird.  Sorry, Siggi.)  Plus, its made with milk from hormone-free, grass-fed cows.
• Cultural Revolution yogurt in Vanilla, Strawberry, Peach or Raspberry.  These flavors have 10g-11g total sugar in the whole milk variety, which is ~1.5tsp added sugar; and only 8g total sugar in the 2% (lowfat) variety.  And bonus, its made from organic milk.
• Stonyfield Farm’s Oikos Greek-style yogurt in Vanilla only (has 11g total sugar per container, and it’s made with organic milk.)  The other flavors have way too much sugar added for me to recommend them.
• In a pinch, Brown Cow Vanilla Greek Yogurt isn’t egregious at 12g sugar per container… but it’s pushing the limits.

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Gigante beans: Some foods are OK to supersize

If you know not the creamy comfort that is biting into an enormous and aptly-named gigante bean, then it is my mission today to convince you to seek out this elusive packet of leguminous deliciousness.

I’ve gone on about my love for beans–and their nutritional virtues–in the past.  And while many folks profess to like beans well enough, too, they fail to see what inspires my unbridled passion for these little packets of complex-carbohydrate goodness.  After all, the American bean vocabulary tends to be pretty limited: we know garbanzos, kidneys, black beans and cannelinis.  Occasionally we dabble in pintos or black-eyed peas.  But unless it comes in a can, most of us can’t be bothered to expand our bean horizons.

If ever there was a bean to inspire a nation to abandon its lazybean tendencies, however, surely the Gigante (aka: Gigande, Yigante, Hija) must be it. Most popular in Greek cuisine (yes, the same clever people who brought us geometry and democracy have also retained this most delicious of beans in their collective leguminous repertoire), gigante beans boast a divine creamy texture and the ability to maintain their shape after all sorts of cooking.  I decided it was time to start making my own gigantes after the $9.99/lb Antipasto bar at Whole Foods lured me in one time too many with that ridiculously delicious Gigante Bean salad of theirs.  (What kind of person spends $18.98 on an impulse bean purchase?!)  Like all bean varieties, Gigantes are an excellent source of complex carbohydrate, protein, fiber, antioxidants and a good source of iron.

Buying Beans

My new favorite place to buy beans is Purcell Mountain Farms, an Idaho-based farm with an excellent online store.  In addition to having the most reasonable prices for my favorite hard-to-find Gigante beans and Beluga lentils, they offer a surprising variety of organic and heirloom bean varieties with romantic names and fashionable appearances.  If you’re bored to tears with your kidneys and pintos, surely an Eye of the Goat, Jackson Wonder or Mortgage Lifter bean will liven up your winter soups–and spirits–mighty fast.    And if you’ve eschewed standard beans for their dull, lackluster appearances, might I suggest the speckled Dapple Grey variety, or perhaps a melange of Orca, Jacob’s Cattle and Painted Pony beans to match the animal-print napkins at your next dinner party?  There are so many gorgeous, interesting, delicious historic bean varieties to try if you’re willing to venture beyond the supermarket aisles.  And by buying heirloom bean varieties, you’re doing your small part to support environmentally-sound practices that promote biodiversity.  Forget  blue ketchups and animal-shaped nuggets to entice your finnicky kids to eat; let them pick out their own mix of fashion-colored and patterned beans and see if that doesn’t get them engaged in the healthy eating process.

If you are a bean buff and are interested in learning more about the folklore behind the wide, wonderful world of beans–as well as how to prepare them–I strongly recommend Aliza Green’s essential cookbook, Beans, from which I learned, for example, that Gigante beans are a variety of so-called “runner beans” that were brought to America from Greece and Spain.

Cooking beans from scratch

While I resisted it for years, I have come to discover that cooking beans from dry isn’t nearly as annoying as I had thought it would be. If you have the foresight to plan ahead, tomorrow night’s dinner beans into a big bowl of water in a ratio of about 3 cups water per 1 cup beans before you go to bed is the easiest way to prep your beans for a faster cooking time the next day.  And if you’re as Type A as I am, the feeling of accomplishment that comes with multi-tasking overnight will lull you into a happy, albeit geeky, slumber.   This would be the regular soaking method.

The quick-soaking method takes about an hour to an hour and a half.  In this case, you’d put your beans in a large saucepan so that they’re covered with 2 inches of water.  Bring the water to a boil and simmer for 2 minutes.  Then, turn off the heat, cover the pan, and let your beans soak in the water for 60-90 minutes, until tender.  Drain the water and proceed with your recipe.

The #1 rule when cooking any dry bean is to avoid adding acid of any kind with the bean until it is already tender.  Don’t add any vinegar, wine, citrus juice, tomato product or anything else acidic to the cooking water until your beans are nice and soft; otherwise, the acid will prevent your beans from softening no matter how long you cook them.

Gigante Beans: Two Ways

Yigandes Plaki: Loosely translates to "Why, oh why, was I not born to a Greek grandmother?"

I am obsessed with this first recipe for Greek-style Baked Gigante Beans, (aka Yigandes Plaki) which was adapted from Nancy Harmon Jenkins’  The New Mediterranean Diet Cookbook and posted on another food blog.  (Better they should have to deal with the copyright issues than me!)  While I’ll admit that it took forever and a half to make, don’t forget that I live in a freezing house and am all for any recipe that involves keeping the oven on for long periods of time.  (If you pre-soak your beans overnight, the first 40-50 minute bean simmering step can be cut in half.)  It strikes me that this recipe would be perfectly suited for a slow-cooker, but since I have yet to figure out how to use the slow-cooker I got for my wedding, I will defer to any ambitious crock-pot enthusiasts out there to adapt this recipe on our behalf and post their findings in the comments section.)  Since I didn’t have fresh herbs, I used a bunch of dry ones (including basil and oregano), which resulted in a final product that, in addition to being mouth-meltingly creamy, gave a similar flavor effect to lasagna…in the best possible way.  In fact, I would recommend serving it like you would lasagna; accompanied by a nice garlicky side dish of broccoli rabe or sauteed bitter greens to counteract the sweetness and bring some green to the plate.  It is absolutely delicious.  If your children don’t like this recipe, then send them back for a refund.

Another easy way to serve gigantes is as a room temperature bean salad appetizer.  Gigantes are commonly featured among the mezze in Greece, and a salad is a perfect way to pay homage to this civilized bean.  Mark Bittman offers an easy-to-follow formula for a Greek-style gigante bean salad in his modern kitchen staple, How to Cook Everything Vegetarian.

Of course, to replicate the Whole Foods Antipasto version that I’m so addicted to, here’s the closest recipe approximation I could come up with, reconstructed from the posted ingredient list on their salad bar signage:

Recipe: Tamara’s Whole Foods Gigante Bean Salad Knockoff

• Cook 1/2 lb of gigante beans per the cooking instructions above
• Roast 1 small red pepper and 1 small green pepper over open flame (your gas burner will do just fine).  Peel their skins off and slice peppers into super-thin strips.
• Mix cooked beans with 1/4 cup apple cider vinegar, 2 TBSP olive oil, 1 TBSP fresh chopped parsley, 1/2 cup (or more, to taste) or roasted pepper strips, 1-2 minced garlic cloves and salt to taste.
• Let salad marinate in fridge for several hours so flavors can blend.
• Serve at room temperature.

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Introducing the Burgeriest (soy-free, gluten-free, vegan) homemade Veggie Burger

For some time, friends and readers have been asking me to share a recipe for a good, easy to make, homemade veggie burger.  And so my New Year’s Resolution this year was to make good on my promises to do so. (Besides, it’s a heck of a lot easier than losing weight.)

As it turns out, there’s a lot of dissatisfaction out there with the available options.  Most commercial offerings have gluten or soy; ingredients which many people avoid by choice or necessity.  And most recipes for homemade versions are incredibly time-consuming, multi-step ordeals; I still have nightmares about the 2-hour Shutter’s veggie burger project I took on two summers ago that involved cooking brown rice from scratch (45 minutes), cooking beets from scratch (1 hour), and mixing them with a laundry list of hard-to-find-GF-versions-of  pantry items* to produce a delicious but exhausting veggie burger.  Then there was that Martha Stewart Chickpea burger that tasted suspiciously similar to falafel.  (Tasty…but if I had wanted falafel, I would have just made falafel…).  I had all but given up on finding a tasty, easy homemade burgery veggie burger until the most recent article in a recent New York Times series on the safety (or lack thereof) of ground beef sold in America provided the second wind I needed to find a delicious, easy, healthful ground beefless recipe for my dear readers to make at home.

Resolved: Eat Less Red Meat in 2010

Even if you’re not a vegetarian, swapping out a beefy burger for a meatless one every so often will do you good– and help you make good on those New Year’s Resolutions to start eating more healthily.  In a landmark study of over 550,000 people aged 50-71 years (that’s crazy huge, by the way) by Sinha et al published in March, 2009 in the Archives of Internal Medicine, researchers followed subjects for 10 years to determine how various dietary factors contributed to mortality. They controlled for all sorts of factors, including race, smoking, alcohol use, weight, exercise habits, vitamin use and multiple dietary habits.  And they found that men and women who ate more red meat were  31% and 36%, respectively, more likely to die for any reason during the 10 year period when compared to people to ate the least red meat. Cancer was the leading cause of mortality, followed by cardiovascular disease.  On average, the group with the lowest red meat consumption ate only about 1/3 of an ounce per 1,000 calories in their diet, compared with the highest meat consumption group, which ate about 2.5 oz red meat per 1,000 calories in their diet.  In other words, in a typical 2,000 calorie diet, the lowest-risk group ate less than 1 oz red meat per day on average (~4.5 oz per week), versus the highest risk group who ate about 5oz per day (~17 oz per week).  The results were statistically significant for trend, meaning that even reducing red meat consumption somewhat from the highest level (without going as low as the lowest-intake level) was still associated with a reduced risk of death.

The bottom line: swapping out one average beef burger a week with a meatless version brings you 3-6oz closer to the group whose dietary habits have been associated with the lowest risk of death within 10 years. And what better New Year’s Resolution than to live past New Year’s 2020?

The Best Homemade Veggie Burger Recipe

And so, after countless veggie burger experiments, spanning several years and multiple genres, I’m pleased to point you in the direction of Mollie Katzen’s Lentil-Walnut Burger. I know what you’re thinking when you hear “lentil-walnut.”  You’re thinking about long-

Two Lentil Walnut burgers on a (gluten-free) bun

haired tree huggers.  70’s style health food stores that smell like vitamins. Hemp, bean sprouts and Birkenstocks.   But do try to keep an open mind.  Mollie loves food, and she knows food.  As such, this burger tastes nothing of lentils or walnuts; it’s greater than the sum of its parts.  The batter has a similar texture and appearance to ground beef–it looks like a beef burger when cooking and when cooked.  Not in the creepy Boca Burger way, but in a ‘it definitely feels burgery rather than bean-pattyish’ way.   The burgers have that same savory, umami flavor profile of a beef burger–delivered by the cider vinegar and mushrooms?–rather than the more bean-and-vegetably flavor typical of a veggie burger.  And you can make the whole batter in the time it takes to cook lentils: 30 minutes flat.  (If I may offer a tip: mash the cooked lentils with your hands–squeeze ‘em real good until they’re totally mush.  It helps make a very coherent batter.) So give this tie-dyed, hippie burger a chance, will you?

To make Mollie’s recipe gluten-free you have several options instead of the bread crumbs/wheat germ/oats she calls for:

1. Use gluten free breadcrumbs, like Gillian’s, Hol-Grain, or Glutino
2. Use gluten-free oats, like Bob’s Red Mill
3. Use the Quinoa Flakes you have leftover from making my gluten-free Quatzoh Balls (of course this will make the recipe more hippie than it is already)
   
4. Make your own gluten-free breadcrumbs by toasting your favorite frozen gluten-free waffle and tossing it in a food processor (Click here for instructions from the clever gluten-free goddess who came up with this nifty idea

Approximate nutrition info per burger (assumes each recipe makes 6 burgers and you use 1 TBSP of oil to cook the burgers in a non-stick pan.  Excludes bun.):  250 calories, 29g carbohydrate–of which 10 huge grams are fiber (so, a net of 19g of carbohydrate–or one and a half diabetic exchanges), 11g protein, 12g (heart-healthy, unsaturated) fat, and 3.8mg iron (~20% of the daily value of 18mg).  Serve with ketchup and a slice of tomato to help absorb the iron from the beans and spinach.

** If I haven’t scared you away from the Shutter’s recipe and you’re up for the challenge, you can substitute Wheat-free Tamari sauce for the soy sauce.  Premier Japan makes a gluten-free Hoisin sauce.  And use any of the bread-crumb-replacement strategies listed above in place of the oat bran or wheat germ she calls for.  And for goodness sake, use canned beets instead of roasting your own fresh ones as I foolishly did and you can redeem that extra hour of your life to play Rhythm Kung Fu on the Wii Fit Plus you got for Christmas.

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With about 5mg of iron per serving, this hearty vegetarian chili is far from an anemic entree.

Iron is a problem for lots of people.

While the average American man eats enough of it, most babies, children and pre-menopausal women do not.  And that’s not even including the vegetarianally-inclined.  Iron deficiency is the #1 nutritional deficiency in the world, and remains a problem even in over-nourished America.  Data from population surveys (1999-2000) show that toddlers and females aged 12-49 have the highest rates of iron deficiency in our country, with prevalence of  7% and 9-16%, respectively.

The majority of iron in our bodies exists as part of hemoglobin–the oxygen-transporting complex in red blood cells.  (A much smaller amount is used for other functions, such as DNA synthesis, the synthesis of neurotransmitters, immune function and the metabolism of food to create energy.)  Given these varied roles of iron, it makes sense that (1) people who lose more blood lose more iron, and (2) people who are growing (infants, children, pregnant women) will require more iron to manufacture more red blood cells, new DNA for each new cell in their growing bodies, and to promote brain development.  When someone has an insufficient number of red blood cells due to a lack of dietary iron, the condition is called Iron-Deficiency Anemia (though there are other types of anemia caused by non-iron factors as well).  Symptoms of anemia range from mild (fatigue, always feeling cold, rapid heart rate or palpitations) to severe (all of the above, plus atrophy of taste buds, sore tongue, sores at the corners of the mouth and spoon-shaped fingernails.)  Children with iron-deficiency anemia may experience retardation in cognitive and motor development that may be irreversible, irritability/attention deficit, stunted growth, and increased susceptibility to illness and lead poisoning.  Pregnant women with iron-deficiency anemia are more likely to miscarry and have low-birth weight babies.

Iron absorption and storage is a very tightly regulated process in our bodies; iron is efficiently recycled from old red blood cells that have been decommissioned, and used for the creation of 200 million new red blood cells per day.  On average, we only lose about 1.2mg of iron per day, which is approximately the amount that we absorb from our diets.  When we’re deficient, our body is able to absorb more.  When we’re awash in iron, our body is able to absorb less.  (Although large doses of supplemental iron can overwhelm our body’s natural feedback mechanisms, which is why it’s important to keep your iron supplements out of reach of children–iron overdose is the #1 cause of poisoning among children under 6 years old.)

Don’t let the Daily Values deceive you

Officially, the recommended daily value for iron is 18mg, which is the amount of dietary iron needed by adult women aged 19-50. (Though women who use birth control pills only require about 11mg per day due to an average of 60% less blood lost in their monthly periods.)  Adult men and women over age 50 require significantly less–only 8mg.  Pregnant women require 27mg/day, which is why a prenatal vitamin is recommended; it would be incredibly challenging to meet these needs consistently through diet alone.

More interestingly, infants 7-12 months need 11mg–or almost 40% more than a grown adult male! This is the reason why experts recommend iron-fortified cereals or pureed meat as baby’s first complementary foods after age 6 months; with the amount of iron infants need and the tiny quantities they eat, it’s virtually impossible to meet their needs on breastmilk or formula and foods like applesauce or pureed veggies alone.

But the daily values can be deceiving, as they assume one important fact: that the average American consumes an omnivorous diet. Since iron from animal sources (called “heme iron”) is up to 10x better absorbed–and the presence of meat, poultry or fish in a meal containing vegetarian sources of iron (called “non-heme iron”) helps increase the body’s ability to absorb it– the vegetarians among us actually have significantly increased irons needs as follows:

Vegetarian adult males: 14mg/day

Vegetarian pre-menopausal women: 33mg/day (though less if you’re on the pill)

And for those of you who donate blood with any regularity, know that each pint of blood you donate has over 200mg of iron that you’ll need to replace over time (though NOT all at once… iron toxicity is very serious, and wholly unpleasant).

What foods are the best sources of iron?

Iron absorption ranges by food source, from as low as 2% for spinach and legumes to 20% for steak.  Average bioavailability of iron from a mixed diet is 18%, whereas it’s only 10% from the average vegetarian diet.

Oysters are an iron-rich, sustainable seafood choice. Slurp ‘em if you got ‘em.

The best non-vegetarian sources of iron are:

• • • • • Chicken liver (12.8mg in 3.5 oz cooked)
        • Clams (11mg in 1/4 cup canned)
        • Oysters (5.6mg iron in 6 oysters)
        • Shrimp (2.6mg in 3oz)
        • Beef (2.3mg in 3oz)
        • Dark meat turkey (2.3mg in 3oz)
        • Canned light tuna (1.3mg in 3oz)
        • Dark meat chicken (1.1mg in 3 oz)

When it comes to vegetarian sources of iron, it’s tricky to talk about ‘best sources,’ because the absorbability of the iron will vary widely by what you eat the foods with. While tofu is an excellent source of iron on paper, there are compounds in soy protein that have an inhibitory effect on iron absorption.  The same goes for legumes and spinach; the presence of compounds called phytates drastically reduces the absorption of their significant iron content to as little as 2%.  The presence of significant amounts of calcium can also inhibit iron absorption, which is why prenatal vitamins have very little calcium in them and cow’s milk is NOT recommended for children under 12 months old.  In contrast, several dietary factors can enhance the absorbability of non-heme iron; these include: vitamin C, organic acids such as those naturally found in certain fruits and vegetables (citric acid, lactic acid, malic acid), alcohol, and the presence of meat, fish or poultry in the same meal (the mechanism behind this last one is unknown, so the scientific community refers to this mystery phenomenon as “MFP factor”–or meat, poultry, fish factor.  I’m not making this up.)

With these important caveats in mind, here is a list of some of the best vegetarian sources of protein:

• Fortified breakfast cereals (e.g.,Total, Raisin Bran, Cheerios): content varies, but one serving may contain up to 100% of the 18mg daily value.  Sadly, gluten-free cereals tend not to be fortified.
• Tofu (6.2mg in 1/2 cup firm)
• White beans (3.9mg in 1/2 cup)
• Lentils (3.3mg in 1/2 cup cooked)
• Blackstrap molasses (3.5mg in 1 TBSP)
• Cooked spinach (3.2mg in 1/2 cup)
• Baked potato (2.8mg in 1 medium potato with skin)
• Kidney beans (2.6mg in 1/2 cup cooked)
• Amaranth grain (2.6mg in 1/2 cup cooked)
• Prune juice (2.3mg in 6oz)
• Cashew nuts (1.7mg in 1 oz)
• Rolled oats (not fortified) (1.7mg in 1/2 cup dry)

When Life Hands you Anemia, Make Chili

Whether you make it with ground beef (or better yet, turkey) or keep it vegetarian, chili is one of the first foods I recommend to my anemic brothers and sisters looking to increase their dietary iron intake.  (One can only eat so much chicken liver, after all.)  The presence of tomatoes–which contain absorption-enhancing Vitamin C, citric acid and malic acid– help improve the bioavailability of iron in the beans.  If you use ground meat of any kind, you’ll get a two-fold effect on iron content: both from the heme iron content of the meat itself, as well as though the MFP factor’s further enhancement of the vegetarian iron bioavailability.

My go-to- recipe for vegetarian chili is this classic one for False Alarm Vegetable Chili from Martha Stewart.  It will surely go down in history as the unfussiest recipe she has ever featured, as it basically calls for chopping up a bunch of vegetables, dumping them in a pot all at once, and then dumping a bunch of dry and canned ingredients in 5 minutes later.  Voila.  It serves 10, and each serving contains ~4.7mg of iron.

If you prefer some meat in your chili, try this recipe for Colorful Turkey Chili from Whole Foods market.  It serves 4-6, and assuming one serving is ~1/5th of the recipe, each serving would contain ~5mg of iron.

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Thai-inspired Black Rice Pudding with Mango

After last year’s unfortunate Halloween candy bender (guess who methodically worked her way through an entire 200-count econo-size bag of mini York Peppermint Patties when not a single Trick-or-Treater showed up?), I vowed not to let a single “fun-sized” candy anything pass through the doorway into my home this year.  And if the costumed neighborhood kids show up this year begging for treats, I will do what any self-respecting candyless nutritonist would do: dim the lights, ignore the doorbell, and be prepared to clean the eggs and toilet paper off my house in the morning.

Of course, this necessary act of self-preservation doesn’t mean that I won’t be treating myself to anything sweet, sticky and seasonably black-and-orange this week.  It’s just that my sweet treat of choice this year will be made from ingredients decidedly more wholesome than high-fructose corn syrup and partially-hydrogenated oils: I’m making a Thai-inspired dessert that’s part Black Rice Pudding, part Mango Sticky Rice.

Traditionally, Black Rice Pudding is made with Thai Black Rice (which is sort of more purple-brown than black); however, Chinese Black “Forbidden” Rice is easier to come by in mainstream supermarkets, so I used that.  (Bonus: it’s non-GMO and an heirloom rice variety to boot.)  Purists will argue that Forbidden Rice isn’t sticky enough to produce the proper effect, but my experience created a perfectly rice-puddingy texture just fine.  Black rice pudding is usually served with a savory-sweet coconut cream and toasted sesame seed topping, which is fine if you’re not going for a Halloween motif.  Which I am.  So I decided to take some liberties and borrow some taste (and color) inspiration from another popular Thai dessert, Mango Sticky Rice.  I also reduced the amount of sugar typically found in this recipe and swapped Lite Coconut Milk for regular.  The result is a delicious, sweet-enough treat that I will enjoy thoroughly as I sit in my darkened house with the blinds drawn on October 31st hoping the Trick-or-Treaters pass me by.

And if I may be so bold to suggest a pairing: since rice is the main event in this carb-centric dessert, I think it makes an excellent and satisfying finish to a light meal that’s more protein-and-vegetable-centric. Like an entree-sized bowl of soup.  How about: a tangy Thai Tom Yum soup, Rick Bayless’ Classic Tortilla Soup (swap the chicken out with baked tofu cubes and add a heap of baby spinach leaves to make it vegetarian), or a classic Miso soup with Tofu?

Recipe: Thai Black Rice Pudding with Mango (serves 6)

1 cup black rice

3 cups water

Salt

1/3 cup sugar

1 can unsweetened Light Coconut Milk (shaken before use to blend)

2 cups fresh mango, cut into cubes (Fresh papaya makes a fine substitute if you can’t find a ripe mango this time of year)

1. In a large saucepan (3-4 qts), mix black rice, 3 cups water and 1/4 tsp salt.  Bring to boil, then simmer covered for 45 minutes until rice is cooked.  There will still be some liquid in the pot.
2. Stir in the sugar, another 1/4 tsp salt and 1 1/2 cups of the coconut milk.  Increase heat to bring mixture to a boil again, then reduce to a simmer.  Simmer uncovered for 30 more minutes, stirring occasionally. Mixture should be thick and gooey and chewy
3. Remove pudding from heat and let cool for at least 30 minutes, stirring occasionally during cooling.
4. Serve in small dessert bowls drizzled with the remaining Light Coconut Milk (stirred to ensure well blended) and topped with 1/4 cup fresh mango cubes.

Approximate nutrition information per serving: 220 calories, 43g carbohydrate (of which ~2g are fiber), 3.5g protein and 4.5g fat.

…which is the caloric equivalent of 4 mini York Peppermint Patties, with decidedly more nutritional merit.  The black color of Forbidden Rice derives from phytochemicals called anthocyanins, which are natural plant pigments with strong antioxidant properties. In fact, there’s a bunch of research out of Asia investigating the promising cancer-quashing effects of these black rice-derived anthocyanins.  Which sadly, my beloved York Peppermint Patties can’t claim.  Sigh.  Not even the Pink ones.

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Few few foods evoke as much controversy as does soy.  Depending on who you are and what expression of soy you’re eating, it can be either a healthy source of high-quality protein that may have some protective benefits against breast cancer risk, or a highly-processed food ingredient that may compromise your health and well-being in a handful of ways.

On one hand, there are multiple, large observational studies out of Asia which show a statistically significant association between higher intakes of natural soy foods and lower risk of developing breast cancer among (mostly post-menopausal) women.  And even those Asian studies which don’t support this association have not shown that eating more traditional soy foods ever increases the risk of breast cancer.  American studies have, by and large, failed to show a similar association, but most researchers chalk this up to the fact that even “high” intakes of soy in the U.S. are lower than the lowest intakes in Asia, meaning that American women are likely not eating enough of the natural phytochemicals in soy called isoflavones that have been credited with its potentially protective effect against breast cancer.  Furthermore, most of the soy eaten in the U.S. is not in the form of traditional, whole-r foods like tofu, miso, tempeh and natto like it is in Asia, but rather in the form of a processed, concentrated, soy-derived food additive called soy protein isolate (SPI), whose isoflavone content may or may not be comparable to that in traditional soy foods.

On the other hand, there is a quieter, but nonetheless disturbing, body of research out there that is linking higher intakes of soy with a variety of unwelcome health outcomes, including thyroid disorders in susceptible people, increased rates of food allergies (especially peanut), intolerances and asthma, and the potential for sexual development problems in children fed soy formula.  If the body of evidence continues to grow and proves these associations more definitively, there are probably a few different biological mechanisms at work here.

• Soy may influence the sexual development of children (especially children fed soy formula as infants) and the hormonal balance of women through the effect of naturally-occurring compounds called “phytoestrogens.” Phytoestrogens are plant estrogens similar enough in structure to the hormone estrogen produced in humans that they can actually bind to our estrogen receptors; soy isoflavones are one of several phytoestrogens present in soy.  Phytoestrogens appear to have potentially beneficial and potentially detrimental effects, which complicates the matter of evaluating soy’s healthfulness.  One one hand, researchers believe that phytoestrogens may compete with more biologically potent human estrogen for receptor sites in our body’s various tissues, and in so doing, it may DECREASE the risk of estrogen-linked cancers like breast cancer in adult women.  But in infants who are still developing, introducing high levels of soy phytoestrogens through soy formula can build up in their tiny bodies quite quickly and possibly influence their sexual development adversely.  Virtually all data on this possible association comes from animal studies– not human studies–so the evidence is not iron-clad that soy formula will increase the risk of problematic sexual development in human children.  However, animal studies suggest that possible side effects could be low testosterone leading to infertility in males and early-onset puberty in females.

• An effect of soy on the thyroid could be mediated by compounds in soy called goitrogens, naturally-occurring compounds that suppress the thyroid’s function by blocking its ability to take up iodine.  In soy, the isoflavone called genistein (which may be one of the same compounds responsible for soy’s beneficial effect on protecting against breast cancer), is goitrogenic.  To be sure, soy is not the only food in which similar goitrogenic compounds naturally occur: cruciferous vegetables (including broccoli, cabbage, turnips and brussels sprouts), millet, and strawberries also contain various types of goitrogens.  So what makes soy different than these other foods?  For starters, the goitrogens in most of these other foods are generally deactivated by the cooking (or fermentation) process.  What’s more is that we tend not to eat these foods in such quantities that the goitrogens in them–neutralized or not–will have any sort of adverse effect on us.  Unlike these other foods, however, the goitrogenic isoflavones in soy are not neutralized by typical cooking and fermentation processes.   In the case of, say, infants, whose sole source of nutrition is soy formula… or adults who are knowingly or unknowingly eating multiple foods everyday “fortified” with soy protein, the levels of goitrogens may become problematic and wreak a bit of havoc on the thyroid… particularly in people with underlying thyroid problems or who are genetically susceptible.  Low-levels of thyroid hormone (hypothyroidism) can cause attention-deficit disorders, memory problems, depression, loss of energy, thinning hair and weight gain.

• The third may be attributable to the fact that, since the launch of genetically modified (GMO) soy in 1996, >90% of soy grown in the world is now GMO, meaning that genes from different species of plants/animals are artificially injected into the soy plant to create novel proteins that our bodies have not before encountered in nature.  Some researchers suspect that in susceptible people–like young children who have immature digestive systems or people with weak/inflammed digestive systems (’leaky guts’)– these unfamiliar proteins can trigger immune responses to both themselves and to similar proteins which result in food allergies and intolerances, which are notably on the rise for some inexplicable reason.

One would have hoped that the FDA might have forced GMO soy developers (like Monsanto) to show evidence that their products did not, in fact, result in such outcomes before allowing them to unleash their products en masse into our food supply in the mid 1990s–as was done in many European countries.  But one would be disappointed to learn that this did not, in fact, come to pass.  And so, 13+ years after we’ve all been slipped GMO soy protein in everything from our infant formulas and granola bars to our breakfast cereals and fast-food burgers, evidence is just now trickling in that confirms some of these suspicions on the safety of processed soy in general–and GMO soy in particular.

So what’s an eater to do?

My vegetarian and vegan friends rely heavily on soy as a high-quality, complete source of vegetarian protein.  And health authorities keep telling those of us who eat meat to eat less of it… so wouldn’t soy be a lower-fat, healthy substitute?  It’s confusing to be sure.  I’ll be the first to admit that science has yet to offer a definitive answer on soy, but since this column is called “What I’m Eating Now,” I’ll give you my informed opinion, based on the state of the science and expert opinion today as I have come to understand it, on what I recommend with regards to soy. (And I should mention as a caveat that I don’t eat soy protein at all, since I have a digestive intolerance to it.  It’s worth mentioning that soy can be a difficult-to-digest protein for many, which is why the Asian cultures needed to ‘tame’ it through fermentation in many of their traditional foods.)

RED LIGHT SOY FOODS: Foods that just about everyone should avoid.

1. Soy infant formula. The figures I’ve seen show that 20%-25% of babies are being fed soy formula in this country, despite the fact that the American Academy of Pediatrics recommends only TWO
   

   Soy infant formulas are not recommended for milk-allergic babies unless they can't tolerate hypoallergenic, hydrolyzed cow's milk formulas, either.

   indications for the use of soy formula for feeding infants.  1) For vegan infants who are not breastfed; 2) For infants who suffer from a very rare and serious condition called galactosemia, in which they cannot digest lactose (milk sugar) at all, and therefore cannot have any milk-derived formulas. Unfortunately, it’s common practice for pediatricians to tell moms who think or know their babies have a sensitivity to cow’s milk protein (casein) to automatically switch to soy formula.  In fact, it is recommended to first try a hydrolyzed cow’s milk formula, in which the long milk proteins are “pre-digested” into smaller fragments called peptides that should not trigger allergic responses.  There are partially hydrolyzed formulas that contain peptides (small chains of a few amino acids) and elemental formulas, in which the milk proteins are completely broken down into individual amino acids (for hypersensitive infants).  It is always recommended to try these formulas in a milk-allergic baby first before resorting to soy-based formulas; however, their significantly higher cost (and stronger smells) may be prohibitive for many.  Because formula is an infant’s sole source of nutrition, the effect of some of soy’s more problematic compounds can be magnified in such large quantities in such tiny bodies. Soy protein can be difficult for babies to digest owing to the presence of naturally-occurrirng compounds called protease-inhibitors, and the phytates in soy can inhibit the absorption of various minerals, including calcium, iron and zinc. (Note that fermenting soy eliminates these latter problems, which is why traditional Asian foods are able to avoid these problems).   The use of soy formula also appears to be linked to higher rates of peanut allergy and other food intolerances than the use of cow’s milk formulas, so I’d recommend to exhaust all other options before using soy infant formulas if you can… especially if your baby is at high risk for developing food allergies.

YELLOW LIGHT SOY FOODS: If these are daily staples in your diet, I’d cut back to a few times/week for the whole lot combined.  But probably no need to avoid them altogether.

1. Processed foods and drinks containing soy protein isolate (SPI) or soy protein concentrate (SPC), like frozen veggie burgers (Boca Burgers, Gardenburgers, Morningstar Farms Garden Veggie patties), vegetarian meat substitutes made with “TVP” (textured vegetable protein), protein-fortified breakfast cereals (yes…this includes the wildly popular Kashi GoLean…please don’t shoot the messenger!), high-protein shakes or soy protein powders, most meal replacement/”energy” bars (and even some Granola bars, sadly), and soymilk.  (This has been the hardest paragraph I’ve written to date, as I know that many people are fiercely loyal to some of these products for their taste, convenience and ‘healthy’ halo…and frankly, I’m scared of the fallout I’m likely to get.) The fact of the matter is that (1) few Americans (even vegetarians) are protein deficient, so all of this added soy protein in our diets is nutritionally extraneous, (2) unless it’s labeled organic, the soy protein in these foods comes from GMO soy that has NOT been safety-tested in humans and is starting to be associated with some negative (but not life-threatening) health outcomes, (3) it is a highly-processed ingredient subjected to a host of unsavory chemical solvents that may retain toxic residues that can add up when consumed in large quantities, and (4) these foods contain 2-6x more isoflavones than traditional soy foods, delivering a concentrated dose of phytoestrogens that may mess around with your hormonal balance in an as-yet-unknown and possibly unwelcome way.  Now I’m not suggesting that it’s necessary go cold-turkey by any means, but I am suggesting that if your daily routine involves a bowl of Kashi GoLean in Soymilk for breakfast, a high-protein energy bar as an afternoon snack, and a frozen veggieburger for dinner, it might be a good idea to inject some healthy variety into your diet.

Sunshine Burgers are a rare breed of veggieburger: soy AND gluten free.

Alternatively, there are plenty of great convenience products out there that don’t use any soy at all that you might consider trying as well: Larabars are soy and gluten-free; There are a variety of non-dairy, soy-free, calcium-fortified “milks” for your breakfast cereals, including Oat milk, Almond milk, and Rice Milk, Hemp milk (which is a fantastic source of omega-3’s); Sunshine Burgers are sunflower and bean-based frozen veggieburgers that are both soy and gluten free; Mix1 makes refrigerated soy-and-lactose-free shakes that are high in protein, vitamins and fiber.  If you’re a protein-powder person, try hemp protein powder or whey protein isolate as good soy-free, gluten-free, low-lactose alternatives to soy protein powder.

GREEN LIGHT SOY FOODS: Foods you can enjoy without worry.

1. Organic, fermented/traditionally-prepared Asian soy foods like tofu, natto, tempeh or miso. By choosing organic, you’re eliminating the big question mark hanging over
   

   When it comes to soy, do as your fictional Asian grandmother would do

   the use of GMO soybeans, and by choosing more whole, traditionally-prepared foods, you’re benefiting from the time-tested fermentation processes that help tame most of soy’s more problematic nutritional quirks.  As mentioned earlier, virtually all of the data that show a health benefit for soy foods in preventing breast cancer are based on studies of Asian women who ate these types of foods.  There’s no compelling data to suggest you should limit these foods in your diet that I have come across.

2. Organic edamame.  Edamame, or boiled young soybeans, contain a moderate amount of isoflavones and lower levels of anti-nutrients (the protease inhibitors and phytates discussed above) than mature soybeans do.  As a result, edamame make a fine snack whenever you get a hankering.  XXXXXXXXX
3. Soy oil (or vegetable oil containing soy oil) and soy lecithin: If you live in America today and eat anything that comes in a bag, box or wrapper, it’s virtually impossible to avoid these soy-derived ingredients.  Fortunately, you really shouldn’t have to worry about them.  Soybean oil, by definition, won’t contain any detectable protein, and soy lecithin is a phospholipid (also a type of fat) used as an emulsifier in foods (like chocolate, margarine or ice cream) to help keep fat and water from separating.  There shouldn’t be any actual soy protein in either of these ingredients; many (but unfortunately not all) people who are allergic to soy are even able to consume products that contain these ingredients.

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One of the many guest appearances Ratatouille made on our honeymoon; here, as a base for seared fish

I’m back from my magical trip to Provence, and am delighted to report that the South of France turned out to be a surprisingly GF-friendly place to eat! In fact, it was SO much easier for me to eat out at restaurants there than it is for me here in New York.

Unlike the cuisine that dominates in Paris and in most Parisian-style French bistros in the US, the regional Provencal cuisine is NOT based on the classic French ‘mother sauces’ that contain a butter and flour roux as their thickening agent. Instead, Provencal cuisine employs flour-free vegetable,  fish and/or cream-based sauces such as tomato coulis, anchoïade (anchovy & garlic sauce), and various vegetable cream sauces (mushroom, red peppers…) to accent their vegetable, fish and meat dishes.  Gluten-free vegetable tapenades and terrines (olive, artichoke, red pepper, eggplant…) are also widely served as flavorful accents to a meal,  and you’re as likely to see them served with bread as you are with an omelet or a piece of fish.  After having multiple restauarant owners walk me through their menus item by item to tell me what was safe for me to eat and what wasn’t, I came to conclude that the Provencal cuisine is much more “honest” than is American cuisine; in other words, there tended to only be gluten in foods that one would expect to find gluten in, and I did not encounter any hidden gluten in unexpected places. The only foods that were off limits to me on menus were pastas (obviously) and the toasted croutons served alongside the bouilliabase (obviously).  As a result, I was able to easily gain the requisite weight one would expect to gain on a proper French Honeymoon.  Now back the gym…

The other thing so wonderful and different about eating in Provence in July was the monopoly that locally-grown, in-season vegetables had on the region’s menus.  There was not a head of broccoli or cauliflower in

Another ratatouille sighting, this time as a heaping side dish served at a prix fixe meal to hundreds of revelers at the Vacqueyras Wine Festival

sight at any market or in any restauarant. Instead, tomatoes, zucchini, eggplants and artichokes dominated the local markets and the restauarant menus. It struck me that starting around late July through August, we face a similar glut of tomatoes and zucchini here in the northeast; our gardens produce more than we can eat, the farmers’ markets beckon with stacks of inexpensive, sweet heirloom tomatoes that just beg to be bought by the pound… and we collectively fantasize about learning how to can our own veggies at home to capture the fleeting summer bounty and stretch it out beyond its short, natural life.

So what do the French do with their embarassing riches of the world’s most flavorful tomatoes, zucchini and eggplants?

They make Ratatouille.

Ratatouille is a dish that originated in Provence, and it appeared on our plates in some incarnation at outdoor festivals and Michelin-starred restaurants alike.  We had it served to us warm and cold.  We had versions with peppers and without peppers.  We had it offered up as a standalone side dish to fish or chicken and as a filling for omelets and crepes.  Each chef put their own spin on it, and each version we tasted was equally delicious.  It’s hardly a surprise, then, that I chose it as the topic for my first post-vacation blog post.

This recipe for Ratatouille comes from a cookbook I bought while traveling called When Our Grandmothers Cooked in Provence, by Frédérique Féraud-Espérandieu.  (Based on the number accent marks in her name, I decided she must be a huge authority on all things French, so I chose her cookbook above the others.)  Make up a big old batch, freeze some, keep some in the fridge, and serve it for breakfast, brunch, lunch or dinner, take it to potluck picnics, eat it hot or cold and don’t feel guilty about buying that enormous bag of tomatoes from the Farmer’s Market next month.

Recipe: Somebody’s French Grandmother’s Ratatouille

Serves 6

Olive oil

4 (small) eggplants (or 2 medium-sized ones), peeled and diced

4 (small-medium) zucchinis, diced

4 green peppers, seeded and cut into strips

2 lbs ripe tomatoes, peeled, seeded and quartered

2 (large) onions, sliced

3 garlic cloves, crushed

1 bay leaf

1 pinch ground thyme

A few chopped basil leaves (to your own taste)

2 twigs of fresh tarragon

3-4 pinches minced parsley

Salt & pepper

Optional: a handful of pitted green olives (the author recommends “Picholine” variety if you can find them; they’re a firm, immature type of green olive)

Directions:

Heat 3 TBSP olive oil in a large saute pan over medium/high heat.

Saute zucchini until golden.  Season with salt & pepper, remove from heat and drain. Set aside.

Using same pan, repeat the same process for the eggplant until brown.

Repeat the same process for the peppers (you can use less oil here…)

Finally, sweat the onion in 3 TBSP of olive oil, add the tomatoes, garlic, thyme, basil, bay leaf and tarragon.  Cook uncovered and leave this “coulis” to reduce.

Add all of the cooked vegetables back into the with the saucepan with the coulis, add the olives if you wish, stir  until blended, and let simmer on a very low heat for an additional 15 minutes.

Check the seasoning and adjust to taste.

Garnish with the chopped parsley.

Because it would be un-French of me to calculate the precise nutrition info of this dish, suffice it to say that even if you use the total of 12 (!) TBSP of olive oil that the recipe calls for, that makes for 2 TBSP per person, or about 240 calories.  The vegetables are so low calorie that each serving will still only come in at around the 300 calorie range, so enjoy it like the French do: avec pleasure and sans guilt.

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In case this doesn't fit into your kid's lunchbox, 100% natural coconut water is sold in more convenient juice-boxy cartons.

I don’t know about where you live, but here in New York, it hit 90 degrees this week.  And it’s not even May.  No sooner did the flip flops come out did I find myself compulsively buying drink boxes of coconut water each time I passed by a bodega.

What is coconut water, you ask?

Not to be confused with coconut milk, coconut water is the clear “juice” of a young (green) coconut that slowly gives way to coconut “meat” as a coconut matures.   Coconut water is very low calorie, fat-free, and is an excellent source of potassium, an important electrolyte.  (In addition, it also has small amounts of other electrolytes, such as magnesium, calcium and a teensy bit of sodium.) If you’ve ever traveled to the Caribbean or southeast Asia, you’ve likely seen people drinking coconut water from a straw straight out of a green (or white, if it was shelled) coconut.   In contrast, coconut milk is a high-calorie/high-fat (albeit super delicious), creamy liquid derived by squeezing the grated meat of a mature coconut.  It’s used for cooking and baking mostly, although recently I’ve seen it used as a non-dairy alternative to milk to make lactose-free  yogurts and ice creams.

Meet the many faces of coconut water…

Coconut water as sports drink?

When you sweat, you lose trace amounts of electrically-charged minerals called electrolytes, one of whose many important functions in our body is to maintain fluid balance.  In other words, they keep the right amount of water in the blood, in the cells and outside the cells so that everything can work the way its supposed to.  When your electrolytes become imbalanced–which can happen if you have prolonged diarrhea, excessive vomiting, if you run a marathon without replenishing properly, or if you ingest a super-human amount of water in a really short period of time, for example–then crazy things can happen to your fluid balance.  You can lose too much, become dehydrated and pass out from low blood pressure… your heartbeat could become irregular… you could overload your cells and cause them to burst.  Lots of fun things.   Luckily, we’ve got kidneys to handle the electrolyte balancing act, so we rarely need to think about it.

Now I will preface this by saying that plain-ol’ tap water is more than sufficient for the vast majority of gym rats and weekend warriors to prevent dehydration.  According to the American College of Sports Medicine, electrolyte replacement really only becomes necessary for intense physical activity that lasts for more than an hour, particularly among people who are sweating profusely and/or drinking a lot of plain water. The most important electrolyte to replace is sodium, since you lose a fair amount of it when you sweat.  (Our bodies are better able to hang on to some of the other electrolytes, such as potassium, so replenishing that in large quantities is less of a concern.)  Specifically, the ACSM recommends that, for intense physical activity that lasts over 1 hour, athletes should aim to have 500-700 mg of sodium per liter of fluid consumed, which translates roughly into 300mg of sodium in your typical 20-oz bottle of, say, Gatorade.  Of course, if you don’t like the taste of sports drinks or don’t want to spend the money, there’s absolutely no reason you couldn’t meet your fluid and sodium needs by drinking plain water and nibbling on a snack of some salted pretzels from your fanny pack.)

There several major marketers of coconut water that I’ve come across in the US, including Goya, Zico, O.N.E , and Vita Coco.  Several of these brands market their coconut water as a ‘natural sports drink,’ and it’s an interesting claim.

According to the USDA and all of the product labels I consulted, 1 cup (8oz) of pure, straight-from-the coconut coconut water has about 45 calories, 10g of natural sugars (2.5 tsp worth) and no fat.  (If you decided to splurge on a coconut water with added fruit puree for extra flavor, that would bring the total to somewhere between 45-60 calories per 8oz (about half that of an equivalent amount of apple juice) with 10-13g of sugar (2.5-3 tsp worth), depending on the brand.)   In the electrolyte department, that serving contains: 600-680mg potassium (12%-14% of the daily value), 40-60 mg sodium (2%-3% of the daily limit), 4%-6% of your daily calcium needs and 6%-10% of your daily magnesium needs.   This translates into 200 mg sodium per liter, which falls short of the ACSM recommendation of about 500 mg per liter for intense workouts over 1 hour long.

Compare that to 8oz of your average leading sports-drinks, where the same 8oz portion contains 50 calories, 14g of added sugar (3.5 tsp worth), 1% (30 mg)of the daily value  for potassium, 2-5% (110 mg) of the daily value for sodium, no calcium and no magnesium.  For athletic rehydration purposes, these products provide about 440 mg sodium per liter consumed, which is much closer to the ACSM recommendation for intense physical activity lasting more than 1 hour.  Of course I doubt that the artificial colors do very much to boost one’s athletic performance.

In a (coco)nutshell: The coconut water would appear make an acceptable substitute to a sports drink for intense indoor activity lasting just about an hour, but if I were running outdoors in the summer for an hour or more, racing in a marathon or competing in a triathalon, I’d play it safe and stick with the fakey sports drink.

Coconut water as a secret weapon to fight high blood pressure?

If you have high blood pressure, you’ve probably already been advised to stick to a low-sodium diet.

But it’s less likely that you’ve been advised to stick to a reduced-sodium AND high-potassium diet.  (Doctors don’t actually learn much about nutrition in medical school…)

One 11-oz box of plain coconut water has about the same amount of potassium as 2 small bananas.

As it turns out, sodium and potassium play opposing roles in regulating your blood pressure.  While sodium causes you to hang on to more water, thereby increasing your blood volume and by definition, your blood pressure, potassium has the opposite effect.  It LOWERS blood pressure by causing “diuresis” (or, making you have to pee) which eliminates excess water from your blood, reduces the blood volume, and therefore reduces the blood pressure.  I bet your doctor also didn’t tell you that there’s solid research which shows increasing dietary potassium by about 1,550mg/day has more of a blood-pressure lowering effect than reducing your dietary sodium by an equivalent amount (1,400-1,800mg) per day.  Now, my guess is that for most people, it’s much more pleasant to get to eat more fruits and vegetables and have to cut back a little bit in the sodium department than to have to just have to cut back a whole lot in the sodium department. Am I right?  Generally, you should aim to eat 4,700mg of potassium per day (unless you have kidney disease, in which case your doctor will need to tell you how much is safe to eat.)  Fruits and vegetables are the best dietary sources of potassium, with foods like prunes/prune juice, bananas, OJ, melon, apricots, spinach/leafy greens, tomatoes, potatoes and asparagus being among the best sources.   But if you’re falling short of getting in a solid 9 servings of fruits/vegetables daily to meet this goal, then perhaps you might consider adding one 11-oz tetra-pak box of plain coconut water per day.  That alone should get you to about 20% of your daily potassium goal while only spending only 2% of your ideal sodium budget.  Efficient!

Coconut water as lower-sugar juice surrogate?

Even if you’re not among the sports-drinking or hypertensive set, coconut water may be useful to you yet.  If you ever make smoothies at home using fruit juice as a base, replacing it with plain coconut water would reduce the calories of your smoothie by 60-75 calories and 12g of sugar (3 tsps worth) per 8oz used, due to the lower sugar content of plain coconut water versus an equivalent amount of, say, 100% apple juice.  True, the coconut water lacks the vitamin C that you get from juice, but if you’re having a smoothie with real fruit, then your vitamin C bases will be more than covered.  For economy’s sake, you can buy larger (32 oz) boxes of coconut water to keep in the fridge.

Alternatively, if you have kids who are juice-addicts and you’re trying to wean them off of it due to the sugar, perhaps you might consider replacing their current juice box with a lower-sugar coconut water “juice box”?   (This may be more appropriate for an older child, since I haven’t come across any brands that are selling an appropriately child-sized tetra-pak in the 4-8oz range… the standard size is 11oz, which is a bit large for a younger child.)   As you may be aware, the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) recommends limiting a child’s intake of 100% juice to a modest 4 oz-6oz per day…  that’s 1/2 cup-3/4 cup max!  This recommendation is based on research findings that show excess sugar intake in kids–a lot of which can come from juice– as a contributing factor to childhood obesity.   To start the weaning process, go for the flavored coconut waters, which taste like watered-down juices and fruit punch but still have anywhere from 1-2 tsps LESS sugar per 8oz serving than does 100% juice.  From there, see if you can wean them down to the natural (unflavored) coconut water, which has even less sugar: more like 3 tsps less per 8oz serving.  One way to try this would be to seek out an actual young coconut from a Hispanic/Caribbean/Asian grocery, buy it, lop off the head ans stick a straw in it (see photo above).  Your kids may be so enchanted with the novelty of drinking straight from a coconut that they choose to give the taste a chance… and then, boom!  They’ll be as cuckoo for coconut water as I am.

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Welcome back to my life, yogurt.

From what I can tell, many people in the nutrition field regard people who claim to be lactose intolerant with a dose of skepticism.  Apparently, some data somewhere shows that many people who think they are actually aren’t, and this data has somehow made its way into nutrition textbooks, causing the aforementioned skepticism.

Now, it is true that it’s very rare for someone to be completely and totally lactose intolerant–as in, they produce zero lactase enzyme and cannot digest even a molecule of lactose.  But that doesn’t change the fact that dairy products in varying forms and varying doses cause a lot of people a lot of grief.  The party line is that people who have some sort of lactase deficiency may not be able to drink a glass of milk, but they can often tolerate yogurt and cheese, since the culturing process helps break down some of the lactose.  My experience has been that this may be true for some people, but certainly not for  everyone.  The only way to know, unfortunately, is through trial and error.  Which means that for some lactose intolerant people, even yogurt may be off limits. Now don’t get me wrong, there are plenty of other ways to get calcium in your diet if you can’t eat dairy, but few of them are quite as convenient, ubiquitous, portable and tasty as yogurt. I’ll confess: when I watch you eat yogurt, I get major yogurt envy.

First, let’s face our tormentor for a moment:

Lactose is the natural form of sugar found in milk, and is composed of two simple sugars (monosaccharides) called glucose and galactose that are bonded together.  Since our guts prefer to digest their sugars in monosaccharide form, we have cells on the tips of the fingerlike projections (called villi) in our intestines that secrete digestive enzymes to break down disaccharides into monosaccharides so that they can be absorbed.  The enzyme responsible for breaking down lactose is called lactase.  Lactase production is essential for human survival, since infants rely exclusively on (human) milk to survive for their first several months of life.  It is incredibly rare–and often fatal–for a baby to be born with lactose intolerance.  But as luck (or evolution) would have it, most people on earth are genetically programmed to produce less lactase as we get older, presumably since milk wasn’t supposed to be our sole source of nutrition anymore.   How much less lactase you produce will determine to what extent you can tolerate foods that contain lactose.  Are you with me?

(As an aside, because the lactase-producing cells are located on the tips of the intestinal villi, anything that damages the villi can result in a temporary form of lactose intolerance until they have the chance to regenerate.  This commonly happens if you have a nasty bout of diarrhea that lasts more than a couple of days– or perhaps if you’ve had undiagnosed celiac disease for awhile that caused inflammation and damage to your intestinal lining.  Now, say, if your child has mild diarrhea for a day or two, there’s absolutely no need to withhold milk.  But if there’s some severe diarrhea going on or a chronic condition, it’s probably a good idea to lay off the cow juice until their guts have a chance to heal a bit.)

Why your intestines freak out when you have lactose intolerance (scientifically speaking)

Now, what happens if you can’t break down lactose in your intestine?  Well, depending on how much you ate, it will increase the sugar concentration in your gut by a little or a lot.  And if you’ll remember back to that lesson on osmosis from your 8th grade biology class, this draws water into your intestines from the little blood vessels that surround them in an attempt to dilute the sugary contents.  Anytime lots of of water rushes into your pipes, diarrhea is not far behind.  Additionally, the undigested lactose keeps moving along into your colon, where it meets the friendly bacteria who live there.  And these bacteria are most delighted to feast on the sugary bounty you’ve fed them.  As they digest the lactose that you couldn’t, they put off gasses as a byproduct.  This is what accounts for the flatulence.  Fun!

Finally!  Some lactose-free yogurt options.

Back to the yogurt dilemma.  I’ve been waiting for years for the Lactaid brand to come out with a lactose-free yogurt.  But I guess they were too busy counting their money from sales of their lactose-free milks, ice creams and cottage cheeses to bother.  Or maybe they read the same textbook I did and believed that all lactose intolerant people could eat yogurt just fine.  (Not all of us can.)  Or maybe they saw how much soy yogurt is sold at supermarkets and thought that lactose-intolerant people had a perfectly acceptable yogurt substitute so they didn’t need to bother making us another one. (Um… have they *tasted* soy yogurt?  It tastes chemically and weird to me.  Plus, it’s not as if soy is a digestive walk in the park.  If I’m going to be gassy anyway, I’d rather just eat real yogurt. Sheesh.)

As the yogurt aisle grew longer, and options proliferated, I became even more despondent that, with all of these choices, there still wasn’t one suitable for the intestinally-challenged.  And then, as I looked across the crowded aisle, my eyes locked with two new yogurts that looked like they were made just for people like me.

The first one was a no-brainer product that I was hoping Lactaid would have come up with eons ago: an organic, cow’s milk yogurt made with low-fat lactose-free milk.  It’s a brand called “True,” it comes from Vermont, and it tastes way better than any conventional yogurt I remember having.  I love that it has a very short ingredient list and no artificial flavors, sweeteners or preservatives.  The vanilla flavor tastes like actual vanilla bean, not that fakey chemically vanilla flavor.  And its sweetened just enough to taste good, but it’s not loaded full of sugar.  It is dee-licious. Unfortunately, I had to pay a premium for this yogurt that met every single criterion on my checklist: it cost $1.79 for a 5 oz container at Whole Foods.  But maybe prices will come down once you all start buying it, too.

*** 2010 update:  since originally posting this, the True Yogurt company had ceased production due to loss of their facilities.  For more ideas on super-low lactose yogurt options made from cow’s milk, check out my post on MORE Yogurt Options for the Lactose-Challenged.

The second product I discovered is called  So Delicious, and it’s made from coconut milk instead of cow’s milk, so it’s naturally lactose-free. Because it contains no dairy at all, it’s appropriate for vegans and people who are actually allergic to cow’s milk protein (caesin).  I think it’s a pretty decent product:  one 6oz container has 150 calories, which is the same amount as a Dannon All-Natural vanilla yogurt, but more than one of those light/recuced calorie yogurts; it has too much sugar added for sure, but no more than most other yogurts out there, and actually less than the Dannon we just referenced; and it’s fortified with 25% of your calcium for the day in a form that is very well absorbed. As a bonus, they throw in some vitamin B12, which is a difficult vitamin to get from the diet if you’re a vegetarian.  As far as taste goes, you definitely get the subtle coconut flavor in the background, which I quite like.  It certainly beats the not-so-subtle soybean flavor of soy yogurts in my book.  (This company also makes soy yogurt, though, so don’t confuse the two.)  I liked it, and think it’s a very respectable yogurt substitute for the dairy and soy-challenged.

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Move over, Irish Oatmeal. Green Tea porridge is kicking off St. Patty's Day this year.

We’re approaching St. Patrick’s Day, the day of the year that all of New York’s bagel shops color their dough green to help people start off their mornings in the spirit of the day.  People who can eat wheat, that is.

I racked my brain to think of a healthy, green breakfast option for the intestinally-challenged, and those friends of ours who prefer not to kick off their days with 500 calories-worth of pure, refined flour…even if it is dyed in a festive, springy color.

And I decided that this would be the perfect occasion to break out my little canister of Matcha green tea powder.  

Matcha is finely-ground green tea that is used in the Japanese tea ceremony, and for culinary uses such as coloring/flavoring a variety of confections and soba noodles.  While all tea varieties come from the same plant (green, black, oolong), the way the leaves are processed is what distinguishes them as far as taste and nutrition.  Green tea is the least processed type of tea, and therefore it contains the highest levels of an antioxidant phytochemical called EGCG.  Most of the research on the health benefits of green tea are from Asia, where consumption reportedly averages  around 3 cups per day in many areas; therefore, it’s unlikely that Americans will derive the same type of benefits that these studies show just from having a weekly mug of it at our local Chinese restaurants.  But still, a healthy food is a healthy food, and since it’s a calorie-free way to add a nice antioxidant boost (not to mention a natural green tint) to our diets, it’s earned a place in our collective pantries.

I found my green tea powder at a local, Asian-owned health food store. If you can’t find it locally, you can order it online.  Don’t be put off by the teensy-ness of the container: a little goes a VERY long way as far as color and flavor, which is good, since I paid $10 for 1 oz.  (If used for tea, 1 oz would make 28 eight-ounce mugs; you’d use about 1g of powder per cup of hot water.)  Of course, you don’t have to use relatively expensive Matcha powder to get green tea’s benefits; you can always just buy green tea bags and make a nice steaming mug for yourself.  Or just order a cup of it from Starbuck’s.  If you have a reusable water-bottle that travels with you, try filling it with home-brewed iced green tea once in the morning instead of water, and you can sip up the health benefits as you go about your day.  As far as those bottle, sweetened, iced green tea drinks go (e.g., Sobe, Snapple), from what I can tell they don’t contain very much by way of  EGCG, so you’re unlikely to derive much benefit from them. After all, the less processed, the better.   (Note: green tea does contain caffeine.  According to the clever scientists at the Mayo Clinic, it has 30-50 mg per cup of brewed tea, which is about 1/3 to 1/2 the amount in the same amount of regular brewed coffee. So keep that in mind as you plan your green tea strategy so that you’re not awake all night congratulating yourself on the new healthy habit you just picked up .)

The benefits of Green Tea

There are literally thousands of studies on the health benefits of green tea, so I’ll focus on a biggie from the sexiest publication around: the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA).  The study, published in 2006, followed over 40,000 middle aged and older adults in Japan for years, and concluded that even at one cup per day, people realized some health benefits, but that the more green tea people drank, the greater the health-protective benefits they experienced.  Some highlights:

Compared to people who drank 1 cup of green tea per day or less:

• At 5 or more cups per day, there was a 12%(men)-20%(women) lower risk of dying, period.  
• At 2-5 cups per day, women had a 32%-39% lower risk of dying from cardiovascular disease (the risk was more reduced with each additional cup)
• at 2-5 cups per day, men had a 15%-35% reduced risk of dying from a stroke (the risk was more reduced with each additional cup.) 
• At 2-5 cups per day, women had a 21%-42% reduced risk of dying from a stroke (the risk was more reduced with each additional cup)

A review of the scientific literature also shows a possible role in breast cancer prevention and recurrence for women with high levels of consumption (5 or more cups per day), but individual research study results are not consistently statistically significant and should therefore be considered as promising, but not definitive.

There are multiple biochemical mechanisms believed to be behind green tea’s health-promoting effects, ranging from inhibiting the generation of new blood vessels (which tumors need to grow), working at the DNA-level to turn on genes that promote cell-death of cancer cells, inhibiting an enzyme responsible for producing inflammatory proteins in our bodies, and acting as antioxidants which help stave off routine cell damage that results from the normal rough and tumble of living.

Matcha-making

I will confess that I originally bought my matcha powder to color a white chocolate ganache that was going in the center of some truffles that we made for the holidays. But surely, healthy matcha powder must be destined for more noble endeavors than to color my truffles or to flavor a bazilion-calorie Starbuck’s Green Tea Frappuccino, musn’t it?

And so, my matcha powder met its destiny in this easy, whole-grain, gluten-free and green breakfast recipe that I invented just for the occassion:

Recipe: St. Patty’s Day Green Tea Porridge

Serves 2

2 1/2 cups lowfat milk or water (or some combo thereof)

1/2 tsp (kosher) salt

1/2 cup Cream of Buckwheat cereal

1 tsp matcha green tea powder

Maple syrup, honey or sugar to taste

Directions

Bring milk/water to a boil with the salt.  (I use 1 cup 1% milk and 1.5 cups water, but any way you do it is fine.  Using milk will sneak some easy calcium into your day.) Add buckwheat cereal and bring mixture to a low boil again, stirring frequently. When cereal starts to thicken but before its totally finished, mix in the green tea powder and mix well enough to break up any powdery green clumps.  Finish cooking, sweeten with the sweetener of your choice (I used maple syrup, but honey or a sprinkle of sugar would work fine, too).  

Nutrition info per serving: (assumes preparation w/ 1 cup 1% milk and 1.5 cups water; does not include sweetener)

Calories: 185, Carbohydrate: 42g (of which 1g is fiber); Protein: 6g; Fat: 1.5g.

(Note: preparing it with water only makes each serving 140 calories, 36g carbohydrate, 2g protein and 0g fat.)

Top of the morning to you, indeed!

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